(Re)negotiating belonging : the Irish in Australia

Belonging is a complex concept. More than a synonym of identity, this multidimensional construct brings together 'a personal, intimate, feeling of being "at home" in a place (place-belongingness)' and 'forms of socio-spatial inclusions/exclusion (politics of belonging)' (Antonsich, 2010: 644). Belonging therefore, has both individual and collective components, strong affective underpinnings and is intrinsically spatial. International mobility poses particular challenges to belonging. Before migrating, sense(s) of belonging or alterity within family, peer group, local community, nation and the world are constructed along specific socio-spatial axes of differentiation (Brah, 1998). These include gender, ethnicity, class, religion and material circumstances. International migration simultaneously exposes the migrant to unfamiliar axes of differentiation and to new experiences as 'immigrant' and 'other' in the receiving society. This inevitably has implications for immigrants' sense of place-belongingness and inclusion/exclusion.